1. Publishing Standards and Report Guidelines

Discovery Medicine adheres to the best practices recommended by the following organizations and guidelines:

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): Discovery Medicine follows the ICMJE recommendations, which provide comprehensive guidance on all aspects of journal editing, including manuscript management, peer review, and handling of complaints.

CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials): Authors submitting reports of randomized controlled trials are strongly encouraged to follow the CONSORT statement and to upload the completed checklist and flow diagram with their manuscript.

PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses): Authors are encouraged to follow the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses of interventional studies. The completed checklist and flow diagram should be submitted along with the manuscript.

MOOSE (Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology): Authors are encouraged to follow the MOOSE guidelines for systematic reviews of observational studies. The completed checklist should be submitted along with the manuscript.

ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments): Authors are recommended to follow the ARRIVE guidelines for reporting in vivo animal experiments and to include the checklist with their submission.

STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology): Authors should adhere to the STROBE guidelines for observational studies. For diagnostic accuracy studies, the use of STARD guidelines is also encouraged.

CARE (Case Reports): Authors are encouraged to follow the CARE guidelines to improve the accuracy, transparency, and usefulness of case reports. The CARE checklist can be downloaded here.

For additional reporting guidelines, please visit the EQUATOR Network.

Submission of a manuscript to Discovery Medicine implies that all authors have read and approved its content and that the manuscript complies with the journal’s policies.

2. Publication Ethics Statement

Discovery Medicine follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals.

Discovery Medicine adheres to COPE’s guidelines and procedures for handling cases of potential unethical behavior by authors, reviewers, or Editors. In cases of alleged or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication, or plagiarism, the publisher, in close collaboration with the Editors, will take all appropriate measures to investigate the situation and correct the scientific record. This may include the prompt publication of an erratum, a clarification, or — in the most severe cases — the retraction of the affected article.

The publisher and Editors are committed to identifying and preventing the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred and will not, under any circumstances, encourage such misconduct or knowingly allow it to take place.

Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly

Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journal

 

Updated on 9 June 2026